Arun Jaitley, the former finance minister, lies in the intensive care unit of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences; Sushma Swaraj, a shining star of the BJP, died cruelly young last week.
Ananth Kumar, a senior BJP leader from Karnataka, died last year; Manohar Parrikar, former defence minister, died suffering from cancer early this year; Uma Bharti has taken voluntary retirement from politics; Venkaiah Naidu opted out by asking to be made Vice President of India; and Rajnath Singh is ensuring that he causes no ripples.
All of these very different leaders had one thing in common — they were mentored by BJP founder L.K. Advani and they were the glittering stars who promised much. They described themselves as the “second generation” of the BJP.
Prime ministerial ambitions
Nearly of all them had prime ministerial ambitions, including Pramod Mahajan, murdered by his own brother in May 2006, who had been described as “his Hanuman” by Atal Behari Vajpayee.
This was to differentiate themselves from the BJP founders Vajpayee, Murli Manohar Joshi and L.K. Advani.
All of them were articulate — the country’s leading lawyers, engineers and extremely urbane and arguably urban leaders.
Yet, tragedy seemed to stalk them in the form of ill health. And the BJP, which took pride in its galaxy of leaders, all excellent orators and able to communicate the party’s views with elan, looks bereft today.
Advani, who sobbed like a child when he went to condole with Swaraj’s family, remembered her like a daughter.
She had made it a point to always remember his birthday with a chocolate cake — his favourite.
All of the second-generation leaders of the BJP treated the Atal and Advani duo as father figures, jostling like children to be the favourite, and occasionally switching loyalties between the two leaders.
Self-made leaders
Swaraj was Advani’s favourite and she maintained her loyalty to the mentor till the end. Mahajan, who started out being an Advani loyalist and his “saarthi” (charioteer) in his 1990 Rath Yatra, switched loyalties to Vajpayee when he became Prime Minister.
It is fascinating that nearly all these leaders were entirely self-made and did not hail from political families.
The absolute and overwhelming impact of the Modi and Shah duo has overshadowed every other leader in the party. And the BJP now reflects the absolute values of the these two men.
Indira Gandhi’s emergency in 1975 and their opposition to it as student leaders blooded them into politics.
Swaraj was initially a socialist mentored by the late George Fernandes. Jaitley went to jail as Delhi university president (the only election he won).
Mahajan, who hailed from an extremely poor family in Beed, Maharashtra, told me once that he looked at the RSS shakha as a way to continue his education after his father, a teacher, died when he was very young.
The rivalry was maximum between these three leaders and, sadly, only Jaitley survives.
One tweet away
But with the dawning of the Modi and Shah era in the BJP, the best laid plans of all these leaders seemed to go awry. Swaraj made an uneasy truce with Modi as she became external affairs minister — but actually only dealing with the consular affairs of overseas Indians.
She gained immense popularity for her innovative use of social media and was literally a tweet away to help Indians in distress.
Yet having known her well, I can say that she was a pale shadow of her former fiery self, the first senior woman leader of the BJP who aced every task given by the party.
The absolute and overwhelming impact of the Modi and Shah duo has overshadowed every other leader in the party. And the BJP now reflects the absolute values of the these two men.
With the BJP having an absolute majority, the two are now carrying out the core distinctive agenda of the party. The kinder, gentler BJP — if it ever existed or was wearing a mask — is history.
